


there's a riot in my head

by aliceinacoma



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: and jughead's really smart for someone who's a total moron, betty's a gal who knows what she wants, jughead's flannel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 16:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19232839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliceinacoma/pseuds/aliceinacoma
Summary: “Oh my god,” Toni muttered next to him. “Is she seriously wearing your flannel?”Jughead didn’t answer, but his immediate blush betrayed enough.-Or, Betty and Jughead get back together, with some not-so-subtle encouragement from Betty. Spans a portion of their breakup from around 2.10 to 2.12.





	there's a riot in my head

**Author's Note:**

> Title's taken from Bastille's "Divide" because all Bastille songs are very Riverable but especially very Bughead.

_Why would we divide when we could come together?_  
_Just bodies that collide, lost and found each other_  
_So don't, don't leave me alone_  
_Don't leave me alone, don't leave me alone_  
_Why would we divide when we could come together?_

_-"Divide," Bastille_

_._

.

.

.

.

.

 

As the festivities of Christmas settled into the annual dull slump of January and February, so does the heated rivalry between the Serpents and the rest of Riverdale High. Reggie continued to slam into him every time he passed, but for the most part Jughead had managed to keep the frequency of all-out brawls to a minimum. Despite the added presence of the Serpents in the hallowed halls of Riverdale, it felt very much like he had never left; he even resumed his spot next to Archie in history class, passing notes about the agonizingly slow pace of Mr. Ambrose’s lectures.

 

It was so normal, a foreboding sense of deja vu frequently overcame him, like he might wake up to find himself right back in Southside High.

 

The only marker that this was not, in fact, one bizarre, fun-house dream, was the painfully real absence of the blonde ponytail he always seemed to be looking for out of the corner of his eye.

 

Betty wasn’t not avoiding him, that was clear, but she wasn’t looking to be chummy with him either - sitting on the opposite side of the lunch table, passing him in the hall with a brief nod, excusing herself from their painful small talk too quickly for him to work in his, “I’m so sorry I’m such an ass” speech.

 

 _Until it sticks._ That’s what he’d said, right? Looked like this time it finally might.

 

 _Oh well_ , he thought bitterly. _Chalk it up to doomed teenage romance._

 

He was determined to dutifully suffer the consequences of his actions until the Thursday morning that Betty walked into their Honors English class in her light blue overalls, yellow shirt, and a flannel tied across her hips.

 

 _His_  flannel.

 

She’d taken possession of it not too long ago, one deceptively cool early fall night as they walked home from Pop’s. He tried to offer her his jacket to relieve her persistent shiver, but she insisted he keep it, instead untying the dark green flannel from around his waist to drape over her shoulders.

 

“Okay but you better give that back,” he’d said, pulling her in by the collar. “It’s my favorite one.”

 

“You know the rules, Jug,” she teased. “Finders keepers.” Her lips slid softly against his, and frankly he would have exchanged all his flannel for the mere promise that she’d continue to kiss him that way.

 

But now to see the shirt draped around her hips, so many weeks after he’d ruined everything between them, was jarring to say the least. It didn’t match her usual style at all, but Betty Cooper could pull of any look as far as he was concerned; it didn’t help that the flannel was positioned in just the perfect spot to remind him how much he liked her ass.

 

As if she could read his thoughts, Betty turned at that moment and stared him down, her eyes piercing into his. She didn’t smile, just cocked her head to the side as if to say, _‘What are you gonna do about it?’_ Then she took her seat in the second row and refused to look back at him again.

 

“Oh my god,” Toni muttered next to him. “Is she seriously wearing your flannel?”

 

Jughead didn’t answer, but his immediate blush betrayed enough.

 

Toni rolled her eyes. “Would you just kiss and make up already? We all know where this is going.”

 

Jughead glared at her. “It’s not going anywhere,” he muttered.

 

“Whatever,” Toni returned quickly. “But it’s getting really annoying.”

 

Glancing over at Betty’s ever-present ponytail, he had to agree.

 

—

 

If that had been the only incident, Jughead might have been inclined to brush it off. After all, maybe Betty just liked the shirt. It didn’t  _mean_ anything.

 

Except that she kept wearing it.

 

Not every day but often enough that he had to wonder if she was trying to tell him something, something that she reinforced with heavy bouts of sustained eye contact.

 

Like the Friday afternoon he sat chatting with his dad during FP’s break at Pop’s. Betty sauntered in with Veronica, taking a seat in one of the booths on the other side of the restaurant, but as soon as she pushed off her shoulders, Jughead’s eyes were glued to his old shirt, which she’d tied up at the waist in a way that was just unfair.

 

FP followed his gaze, chuckling as he realized what had Jughead so worked up.

 

“Well, that’s a message, if I ever saw one,” he said cheerfully.

 

“A message?” Jughead asked skeptically. “She just…likes the shirt.”

 

“Huh,” FP responded, getting up to return to work. “Looks to me like some kind of invitation. Now it’s just up for you to decide if you’ll take it, or if you’re gonna continue to live up to your namesake.”

 

Jughead glared after him, thrown. It wasn’t like he was lying to himself about Betty. Breaking up with her had been one of his stupidest decision to date. He couldn’t even really imagine a future where they weren’t solving mysteries and getting each other in and out of trouble. What would be the point to a life without that? Without her?

 

But at the same time, he knew he’d really hurt her when he’d walked away from her in that parking lot. Flannel or no flannel, how was he supposed to fix that?

 

Veronica, naturally, took the opportunity for some meddling.

 

“Bettykins,” she purred one afternoon as Betty approached the lunch table. But it was Jughead she looked at as she said, “You’ve been sporting an awful lot of flannel recently. Trying a new aesthetic?”

 

Archie, ever the unaware golden retriever, chuckled. “Yeah, no offense, Betty, but I think Jughead has the market cornered on flannel,” he said.

 

Betty slid her eyes over to Jughead’s.

 

“Guess he does,” she murmured, without breaking eye contact, and the only thought running through his mind was, _Oh._

 

—

 

He heard the click-click-click of Betty typing away furiously from the hallway as he rounded the corner toward the Blue and Gold office. He told himself his stomach wasn’t doing that alarming backflip it always did whenever Betty entered a room, but he knew he was lying. Taking a deep breath, he entered the office to find her at the desk, muttering under her breath.

 

“Betts?” he said cautiously.

 

She looked up at the sound, a relieved, unchecked smile blossoming onto her face. Out of instinct, he supposed, or habit, because the next moment she had schooled her features into a blasé calm.

 

“Jughead,” she greeted him, not unkindly.

 

He hesitated at the edge of his old desk. Even though he’d pitched the Pickens story to her, he hadn’t exactly officially been invited back to the team of the Blue and Gold. He wouldn’t blame her if she wasn’t eager to have him back.

 

“Jug?” she prompted him when his silence stretched too long.

 

Shaking his head, he offered her a meek smile and asked, “Mind if I…?” as he gestured toward the desk he’d previously occupied for many a layout/murder investigation session.

 

Betty bit her lip, guilt flitting briefly across her eyes. “I kind of gave the desk to Kevin, after you…”

 

 _After you left. After you joined a gang. After you broke my heart._ He wasn’t sure precisely how she intended that sentence to end or which reason would be easiest to hear.

 

Rubbing the back of his neck, he said hastily, “Right! Of course. I shouldn’t have…”

 

Betty, unable to contain herself, let out a tiny giggle at his expense. He rolled his eyes good-naturedly at her.

 

“You’re fucking with me.”

 

She smirked at him. “You deserve it,” she said. He couldn’t be sure whether she’d intended the double meaning or whether he was just projecting.

 

“Yeah,” he said, pulling out a chair to sit down. “I kind of do.”

 

Silence enveloped them after that, each clicking away on their respective computers, a tentative sense of camaraderie filling the air around them. For the first time, Jughead pondered the probability of some sort of platonic friendship forming between them, which, he determined in between paragraphs of his article, he might be able to live with.

 

Better than not having her there at all.

 

“Hey,” he said eventually, turning toward her in his chair. She paused, fingers hovering above keys, as she looked over at his expectantly, eyebrows raised and lips perched in what he could only classify as hope. Was she waiting for him to say something? If he knew what it was, he’d give to her and more.

 

Instead, he settled for his original sentiment. “Thanks for the typewriter. It was…honestly, it’s too much,” he said, adding quickly, “Not that I’d ever let you take it back.”

 

Betty’s expression melted into a soft smile. “Have you tried it out?”

 

Jughead shook his head. “Not yet,” he admitted, blushing. “I know this is going to sound really stupid, but, uh, I want the first thing I write with it to be the _right_ thing.”

 

Her grin grew wider. “That’s not stupid, Jug.”

 

They each returned to their work, the silence resuming for the rest of the afternoon, but for the first time in over a month, Jughead didn’t feel lost.

 

—

 

Of _course_ Betty knew exactly what to do about the Pickens statue. It was definitely the reason he asked her to Pop’s in the first place, NOT because he worried he was forgetting the sound of her voice or the exact amount of bounce in her ponytail.

 

It definitely wasn’t either of those things, but he still appreciated them.

 

Just like he appreciated the opportunity to solve another mystery with her. The fifth worst thing about their break up - somewhere after “no more making Betty laugh” and “no more watching Betty work out a complicated problem in her head” - was that he didn’t have anyone to solve mysteries with. More specifically that he didn’t have _Betty_ to solve mysteries with. Over the past six months the two had become a packaged deal: Betty made all mysteries worth solving, and he couldn’t imagine their relationship without them.

 

So they agreed to meet up after school the next day with pamphlets Betty carefully crafted to start their investigation into the missing head of the Pickens statue.

 

He should have known she’d show up in that stupid flannel shirt.

 

“Hi, Jug,” she greeted him as she ambled up to his locker shortly after the bell signified the end of school. He hadn’t seen her at all today: she’d missed English - which, admittedly, was all he could concentrate on as Ms. Drew continued her lecture of Holden Caufield’s finer attributes - and he’d holed up in the library for lunch to avoid Toni’s pointed looks about their return to sleuthing.

 

But now she was here in the middle of the hallway, his shirt once again tied around her hips. It took all of his restraint not to shove her up against the lockers and promise her, mostly with his hands, to never push her away again.

 

Mercifully, he managed a weak, “Hi, Betty,” and then they were off into the crisp February air.

 

Hitting all the usual spots for information didn’t take long. By dinnertime they had passed out fliers at the comic book store, the Bijou, the park. As Betty hung up the final poster right outside of Pop’s, he pushed down a brief surge of panic at the thought of parting ways.

 

“You think we’ll find it?” he asked.

 

“With Jones and Cooper on the case? I have no doubts,” she replied, her lips quirking into a familiar smile. For a moment, Jughead saw a flash of a future he’d never previously hoped to imagine: of investigations, of late night coffee and questioning witnesses. Cooper and Jones, solving mysteries in some other town.

 

 _Maybe less a future and more a fantasy,_ he thought.

 

Betty hesitated after securing the last poster, biting her lip as if searching for something to say.

 

“Well,” she said.

 

“Yeah,” Jughead replied. “Thanks.”

 

Betty caught his eye. “Of course,” she murmured, and here it was: a moment. It would be easy to lean down, to press his lips against hers, to drag her back to the trailer and apologize the way he really ought to. But how could he even begin to make up for this?

 

So instead, he said, “This looks good on you, by the way.” He grabbed one arm of the shirt tied around her waist, careful not to tug her closer the way he wanted to.

 

Betty’s smile settled into a smirk, but she didn’t respond directly to his compliment. Taking the tiniest step forward, she said, “Jug. Did you like kissing Toni?”

 

Jughead swallowed and answered her as truthfully as possible.

 

“Honestly? I don’t know,” he said. “I was just thinking about you.”

 

—

 

Afterward, after realizing Hiram’s plans for Riverdale might be worse than they imagined, after admitting he made a huge mistake in pushing her away, after tossing her dress to the floor and carrying her to the bedroom, he whispered, “I’m sorry.”

 

They laid close, covers long shoved down towards the edge of the bed. Her fingers brushed against his wrist as he stroked her hair. Taking a deep breath in, her eyes fluttered closed.

 

“I know,” she murmured. Opening her eyes to stare into his, she said, “Just promise me, Jug…”

 

“What?”

 

“From now on, we’re not gonna do this anymore,” she said firmly. “No more pushing each other away. We’re in this together.”

 

“Did you just almost quote High School Musical at me?” he teased, burying his fingers deeper into her hair. “During our moment?”

 

Betty smiled. “Jug,” she said, failing to sound stern. He took a deep breath, placing a kiss on her forehead.

 

“Together,” he repeated, sealing it with a kiss to her lips. He licked at her bottom lip, his hand traveling from her hair to the bare skin of her hip, but she pulled back from the kiss before it could escalate further. Smiling at him, she sat up, scooting to the edge of the bed to grab one of his old shirts off the floor.

 

“Bathroom,” she said by way of explanation as she pulled the shirt on. Jughead scooted toward the edge of the bed, wrapping his arms around her waist to pull her back flush against his chest.

 

Trailing kisses up her neck, he halted just below her ear, murmuring, “I really like when you wear my clothes.”

 

Betty smirked, turning her head ever-so-slightly toward him.

 

“I know.”


End file.
